The present invention relates to bowls for serving food. Particularly, the invention relates to bowls for feeding young children.
Young children that are of an age to be trained to feed themselves, typically consume food from a bowl using a spoon. One of the more difficult tasks for such young children in this regard, is the manipulation of the spoon into the bowl and the retraction of the spoon out of the bowl to retrieve an amount of food on the spoon for consumption. Due to the relative complexity of this task, children still developing eye-hand coordination have difficulty depleting all of the food from the bowl, which then requires the assistance of a parent to remove and serve all of the food from the bowl.
The present invention recognizes that one of the reasons for this difficulty for young children, is that, with the conventional upright orientation of the bowl, the spoon must be positioned over the bowl and then tilted and dipped downwardly to retrieve portions of food, and then tilted and lifted upwardly and retracted so as to retain food on the spoon and so as not to interfere with the inside surface of the rear side wall portion of the bowl (side wall portion closest to the child). Also, the present invention recognizes that the more confining convex shape of a bowl bottom can be difficult to sweep with a spoon to scoop food, compared to the generally cylindrical side wall of the bowl.
The present invention recognizes that it would be desirable to provide a bowl for feeding young children which was adapted for easy access by a utensil that is held and manipulated by a small child.
The present invention provides a two part bowl assembly for serving food that includes a base and a bowl, the base configured to hold the bowl such as to be tilted toward a food child. The open mouth of the bowl at least partially faces the child. By tilting the bowl toward the child, the child has an increased utensil access into the bowl for retrieving food for consumption. The requirement of manipulating a utensil, such as raising, tilting and lowering the utensil to enter the bowl mouth, is substantially alleviated. Therefore, small children, without the eye-hand-coordination of an adult, can sufficiently manipulate a food utensil into the open mouth of the bowl to retrieve food.
Importantly, when the bowl is in the angular orientation, low levels of food can be scooped with a spoon from the bowl cylindrical sidewall which is less confining to spoon movement than is the convex bowl bottom. Additionally, the angular orientation of the open mouth of the bowl allows the child to see more completely into the bowl to observe the food to be retrieved by the utensil. This increased access and visibility also assist the small child in loading or xe2x80x9cscoopingxe2x80x9d the utensil with food. Additionally, due to the fact that the bowl edge is relatively elevated on a front side thereof (furthest from the child), and depressed on a rear side thereof, a front wall portion of the bowl can serve as a guide or backing surface in directing a utensil into the bowl.
According to the a first exemplary embodiment of the invention, the base has a relatively wide foot print for being supported on a flat surface, such as a table surface, and which includes a central concave area. The concave area is sized and shaped to be compatible with the convex bottom surface of the bowl such that when the bowl is fit into the concave area it can be tilted toward the food consumer.
The base and the bowl further include interengaging frictional fit parts that hold the bowl to the base in a tilted orientation. In this regard, the bowl includes a mounting ring, and the base includes an aperture that tightly receives the mounting ring. The aperture is irregularly shaped, as described below, to assist in a gripping of the mounting ring. The mounting ring can also include a lug or key that inserts into a slot formed into the base to ensure proper angular orientation of the bowl with respect to the base, about a central axis of the bowl.
According to a second exemplary embodiment of the invention, the bowl is formed as a one-piece molded body having a base region defining a supporting plane and a bowl region having a central axis and defining a bowl mouth or edge. The bowl mouth and the central axis are tilted with respect to the supporting plane. As a further aspect, the base region can be hollow and define a second bowl and the supporting plane can define a second bowl mouth. The second bowl and the bowl region are alternately usable food-holding bowls. If the user desires to use the second bowl, the molded body is just turned over giving access to the second bowl. Advantageously, the alternately usable food holding bowls can be of different sizes, or depths or concavities, providing a flexibility of usage, depending on the nature of the food being served, for example, a small deep bowl region can be used for ice cream, and a wide flat second bowl can be used for spaghetti.
According to a third exemplary embodiment, a two-piece bowl assembly is provided which includes a base and a bowl. The base and the bowl have interengaging elements which allow the bowl to be adjustably tilted with respect to the base. This feature provides the advantage that the bowl can be adjustably tilted depending on the level of food in the bowl, or tilted base on the viscosity of the food held therein, or tilted based on the age and eye-hand coordination of the user, or for any other reason. The relative movability of the bowl to the base can be for amusement purposes as well.
According to a fourth embodiment, the bowl and the base can be configured to resemble or simulate an article, animal, character, etc. and the relative movement of the bowl to the base can incorporated into the desired simulation. For example, the base can be configured to simulate or display an object that would naturally be expected to tilt or pivot with respect to an underlying object, such as, for example, a dump truck bed as the bowl, and a truck cab and chassis as the base.
Numerous other advantages and features of the present invention will become readily apparent from the following detailed description of the invention and the embodiments thereof, from the claims and from the accompanying drawings.